[Closed] Singletrack Mag - Lightweight Issue AGAIN (Rant content)

what was said on twitter?

[url= http://twitter.com/singletrackmark ]Vituperative vitriol[/url]

I'm quite taken with the "readers' issue" where folk on here chip in all the articles for one issue of the mag. So Mark, Chipps etc, what about it? If nothing else you guys get at least some time off (I know it still has to be produced etc), and we get to "live the dream" as mountain bike journalists for a while.

As for the quality of ST, I've been getting it since issue 1. Not every issue has been brilliant, but it's still the one mag I'll sit down and spend ages reading. With MBR I've generally finished in about 15 minutes.

scottyjohn - Member
The content of the mag isnt the issue, its that rant at paying customers end of!

Indeed. Wonder how happy the ST team would be if the "forum cocks" just went elsewhere and took their per-view and click-through ad revenue with them?

shaggy - Member
Lights test is a funny one. New lights tend to come out for the start of the winter, for obvious reasons. The bike industry isn’t super ahead of itself so the mags tend to get there test lights days before they can be bought*. So you have 4 options:
1. Review last years lights.
2. Write a review really quickly with limited use of the product (lots of mags do this, the results aren’t really representative of real world use!)
3. Review the latest products a couple of months after the ideal time for users.
4. A combination of the above.
I night ride all year round. #3, the Singletrack option, makes sense to me!

* As an illustration, I had a really early prototype of the Diablo at OSMM, a couple of months later you could buy them.

Maybe this is some of the problem ,, it's down to time scales,, a mag takes time to write produce print and distribut ,, there are now so many websites doing what the mags did but with instant results,, ,,

one of the websites I visit everyday is http://twentynineinches.com/ ok it's niche but it's what I want to read about, you proberly couldnt sell a mag with niche content,

but being net based they can have tests and info up instantly and no premier user payments (yet)

on the plus side STW is the only mountain bike mag I buy, but not every month

Dave - Moderator

I'd rush out and try and buy one, it's not too late to correct your mistake

;o)

[url= http://www.bicyclesmithy.co.uk/ ]Bicycle Smithy[/url] in Hazel Grove are giving away old copies for free, you might be able to pick one up there. They are really nice chaps who sell good stuff. I don't work fo them BTW, but if you mention me Jon will like me and and I might get a discoutn 🙂

I stopped reading ST Mag about issue 44, still subscribe as Mrs NBT seems to enjoy it. I've sent in articles and photos, still waiting to see them appear in print if they're good enough (I freely accept that writing for a living is bloody hard and my stuff isn't as good as the stuff the regular writers come up with)

What I said on twitter was out of order and I apologise. It was meant for my facebook profile, which is slightly more private but would still have been innapropriate even there.

This issue was a very tough one to produce and without exception every member of staff pulled out all the stops to make it happen. Seeing that kind of effort from everyone made me rather more protective over this issue than i should have been. Critical opinion is part and parcel of what we do. We expect it and we do, despite appearances sometimes, listen to it all and it is always reflected on and discussed in the office. We are our own biggest critics sometimes and we always have a post mortem on every issue as soon as we get it back from the printers. Personally, the magazine means a huge amount to me and I often let my passion for what we do and what we have achieved get the better of me.

Again..
I'm sorry

I'm going to go get a drink now and go to bed. At some point over the weekend i will ride a bike and it will all feel better.

Singletrack is head and shoulders above the other mags.

I only just discovered it recently and was kinda taken by the way it's such a different approach to the other tired trash/advertising machinery..

add to that the quite abrasive but still just about scraping interesting and articulate forum and the deal was struck in my mind..

If the good folk running the mag aren't allowed to make a few crass comments and spit a few venomous utterances of their own from time to time then what is the point?

Are they expected to sit above the rest of the forum upon lofty ivory towers... setting a regal and dignified example to the rowdy twunts below?

I'm not really a great buyer of magazines ... but singletrack will get my money for as long as they continue to provide an interesting alternative to the other tosh..

I think we should get some Team Brant and Team Mark t-shirts printed 😀

Takes courage to say "I was wrong. I apologise".

Fair play.

So how about this Readers' Issue?

well said mark, if anything it was amusing and I think we all realise how much it means to you. I think anything you put out in a public forum you have to be prepared to take a little bit of criticism though, you can't expect everybody to like it all the time and with singletrack I think your fortunate that the majority do like it almost all of the time! Its a lot better received than most so chill out when you get the odd, its a bit thin this month gripe!

fair do's mark.
most folks on here think most folk on here are cocks 😆

Most folk on here are cocks.

Halifax ride in the latest issue? Might make me want to go and buy it.

Best mag out there at the moment? Performance VW I reckon 😉

😐

it's like the old singletrack days during the split with Shaun and the arguing about camera equipment

Don't mention Shaun! I mentioned him once but I think I got away with it

Mark looks a little like the bear from Bo Selecta in his twitter pic to me. Damn beer goggles.

Nice apology Mark. You are the Tiger Woods of the mountain bike world 😉

It's still the best MTB mag, ST does by and large walk the line nicely between the fun of MBUK and the flowery **** of Dirtrag, MBR and WhatMTB are just boring.

That said, I think Mark et al are facing a challenge to keep it fresh, there's a few new contributors so maybe that will refresh things a bit, need to keep looking for new perspectives.

readers issue is a $hit idea and would never get printed because everyone would be arguing about what goes in it - probably a load of opinionated waffle....maybe?

good mag. I like it. Good to see a bit of life at STW towers.
[url= http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=singletrack+mark&word2=Brant+Richards ]Things looking up for mark too[/url]

It's still the best MTB mag, ST does by and large walk the line nicely between the fun of MBUK and the flowery **** of Dirtrag, MBR and WhatMTB are just boring.

+1

that sums it up for me

you think, jimbo: 😉
http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=singletrack+mark&word2=Brant+on-one

Mark - Resident Grumpy
What I said on twitter was out of order and I apologise. It was meant for my facebook profile, which is slightly more private but would still have been innapropriate even there.

This issue was a very tough one to produce and without exception every member of staff pulled out all the stops to make it happen. Seeing that kind of effort from everyone made me rather more protective over this issue than i should have been. Critical opinion is part and parcel of what we do. We expect it and we do, despite appearances sometimes, listen to it all and it is always reflected on and discussed in the office. We are our own biggest critics sometimes and we always have a post mortem on every issue as soon as we get it back from the printers. Personally, the magazine means a huge amount to me and I often let my passion for what we do and what we have achieved get the better of me.

Again..
I'm sorry

I'm going to go get a drink now and go to bed. At some point over the weekend i will ride a bike and it will all feel better.

Its all very good apologising but i know for certain if i said anything like that on a forum/twitter/facebook which defaced our companys name as well as slagging off our customers i would be at very least majorly disciplined and potentially even sacked.

in a world where every penny counts this is not the attitude to take or show and when plenty of your customers tell you about the same issue ( regardless of how tiring you worked, like i would guess most of us do on a daily basis ) then you NEED to sit up and listen and realise there is an issue. You guys are all lucky to be in a job which i would guess alot of us on this forum would love to do, so please appreciate it and take feedback on board

That is all

most folks on here think most folk on here are cocks

i once slagged the mag off on here
it ended in a conversation with someone.
i was shown the error of my ways................ 8)
but since that conversation the mag DOES seem to have got a fair bit better and more interesting to me.
to be honest, the rest of the uk's mtb mags are ****ing pish.

duntmatter - Member

most folks on here think most folk on here are cocks

needs to be here: http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/stw-phrases-youd-like-to-see-on-a-t-shirt/page/4#post-1239822

+ 1.... that actually illicited an actual real genuine lol

One unguarded remark on some stupid social networking site and suddenly its all high moral ground. It'll all blow over by tomorrow and be forgotten....or at least it should be.

Not sure that ST has any similarities with MBUK?!
Dirt & ST rule the roost however of the others I think mbuk beats them, that's saying something, but recently it's not been that bad.
Yes some articles are not going to please some, you can't please everyone though.
Maybe a slight over reaction from all concerned including Mark but you can't really knock him for his defence of his and others work towards the mag. Would you say to a bike manufacturer that his bikes are $hit? You're going to get a reaction...

You guys are all lucky to be in a job which i would guess alot of us on this forum would love to do

you serious?

if you don't like the mag, don't buy it. simple

Instead of griping on here why not put some effort into giving some money for sport relief and make a difference that counts to somebodies life? Not one to usually give or to preach about charity but seeing children dying of malaria is sad.

chameleon78

just 1 question..................have you got kids??

I was going to write this really long boring response but couldn't be arsed lucky staff at the mag don't do that.

I guess you can't please everyone if you don't like the mag don't buy it but it works out at about 50p a week.

Any supplier offering a full refund can't be that bad really.

Oh and Shaggy any chance of a hot x bun orange juice and bog roll test just for a bit of real world balance........

Yes, a 4 week old daughter, which probably made me feel so lucky

you serious?

if you don't like the mag, don't buy it. simple

i am and i dont and for the record, you as a cyclist wouldn;t like to be in a job where you test and ride products to do with the sport/hobby that you love doing. If you dont then you my friend need to find some different hobby/sport to do

Its all very good apologising but i know for certain if i said anything like that on a forum/twitter/facebook which [b]defaced[/b] our companys name as well as slagging off our customers i would be at very least majorly disciplined and potentially even sacked.

Er, I don't think you mean "deafced", do you son?

And Mark is the publisher; the owner. If he wants to do a Ratner, he can.

Which I don't think he did. It's the nature of criticism that one tends only to hear the negative stuff, which is why this thread paints a worse picture than the reality probably is.

As it is, though I have been a critic in the past - and have set my reasons out ad nauseam previously - I like the feel of somewhething where the producers of the work acknowlegde there is no padding. Of course, if the standard of writing is up to scratch, I shall enjoy it, though I am not prepared to judge it by heft alone.

Blimey, I haven't had time to read the mag yet ... got a bit of trolling to do on here first 😉

It's a magazine FFS!!!! To quote MBR "get out and ride"

chameleon78 - Member
Yes, a 4 week old daughter, which probably made me feel so lucky

nice one.... 8)
so concentrate on looking after your own, and dont preach to people about giving to charity.

"get out and ride"

No. Its midnight and pissing it down.

Ton - it was a suggestion not a preach

Jamie - pussy 😉

Er, I don't think you mean "deafced", do you son?

And Mark is the publisher; the owner. If he wants to do a Ratner, he can.

Which I don't think he did. It's the nature of criticism that one tends only to hear the negative stuff, which is why this thread paints a worse picture than the reality probably is.

Yawn

you as a cyclist wouldn;t like to be in a job where you test and ride products to do with the sport/hobby that you love doing

to be honest no. to me a hobby is just that. If you painted for a living, would you want to come home and do the same again??

raddoggair..
I really don't want to get drawn into this.. BUT

you are taking issue with how a bloke is dealing with a customer..
in effect.. you are 'in a mood' cos someone is behaving in a way that you would disapprove of if you were the blokes boss... (which you're not)

OR.. you are in a mood cos you wouldn't like to be treated this way of you were the customer in question..

I'm really sorry.. BUT.. horses for courses... I walk into some bars and get a polite reception from the staff.. I walk into others and get called a prick cos my attitude isn't the type that they welcome into their establishment.. that's life.. freedom of choice etc etc etc.

your attitude is very victorian.